Craig Wright’s play Grace, which opened on June 29th at convergence-continuum, extends us an invitation to a less dogmatic consideration of the question of God’s favor - or lack of it. The play jumps into the pool of ideas about faith, grace, and the Wheel of Fortune and has a good old splash around. convergence-continuum’s production, simply and snappily directed by Geoff Hoffman, allows the humor, pathos, and philosophical inquiry of the play to emerge to glorious effect.
Like Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves, Grace takes place in two apartments represented simultaneously on the stage - with some of the same comic results. One apartment houses Steve and Sara (Doug Kusak and Laurel Hoffman), a young Christian couple newly arrived in Florida from Minnesota. Full of spotlessly cheerful faith, they believe themselves highly favored, and seem to have proof: they have just received, from a Swiss investor, money enough not only to buy the hotel they want but to start a “Gospel hotel chain”.
Next door, in an identical apartment, lives NASA programmer Sam (John Busser), whose view of the universe is not only rather more scientifically skeptical, but informed by recent unmerited misfortune: an accident in which his fiancée has died and he himself has suffered disfiguring injury. Moreover, his computer and digital camera seem to be conspiring to erase what concrete record he has of a happy time before the disaster. He’s a suffering Job, if a doubting one.
Karl the Exterminator (Clyde Simon) visits both apartments to spray for “the little guys”, bringing with him not only his pesticide, but a frankly atheistic point of view, to complete the spectrum. The wartime horrors he witnessed as a youngster have left him firmly persuaded that no divinity exists.
But it's not all as simple as that, because time passes, things happen, and people undergo change - or offer resistance which in itself is also change. Sam is not the only Job on the ash heap (Steve develops a nasty rash), nor the only doubter, and sometimes even the faithful receive a sharp reminder of the adage "If you want to give God a good laugh, make a plan." Wright concocts a plot in which all these elements collide in delicious ambiguity - often hilariously, sometimes painfully, always interestingly.
The convergence-continuum actors weave their way through the confusion with skill and daring. Kusak's evangelistic energy - whether for God or for real estate, both of which represent "the substance of things not seen" - is contagious, as is his wretched itching. Laurel Hoffman manages to invest a possibly wimpy Sara with a core of compassion that has actual power. The simplicity of John Busser's approach to his character's suffering and anger creates an effect both touching and funny. convergence-continuum Artistic Director Clyde Simon, in the supporting role of Karl, scores something of a triumph of both comic and pathetic detail. His monologue about the wartime horrors chills to the marrow.
In con-con's flexible space, set designers Hoffman and Simon have placed the apartments between halves of the audience; lights by Cory Molner and sound by Clyde Simon support the text and action with nicely restrained effect.
Grace is the third play in con-con's mini-series "Cosmic Conundrums Curiously Considered". It asks some big questions, and does not insult us with easy answers. In fact, it pokes some fairly pointed fun at the easy-answer merchants. It is theatre that challenges and delights. It deserves our support. The play runs Th/Fr/Sa through July 21st.
box office: 216-687-0074
convergence-continuum.org
tickets $15 ($12 seniors, $10 students) - seating is limited
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